Letters Home
by lostcowgirl
Summary: What starts small can grow into something powerful. Matt & Kitty's oldest son Nat's friend Jim begins his internship with Doc & sends his observations & yes feelings in his first 2 letters home - one to his parents & the other to his sister. In many ways this is an epilogue to Wrong Man in which Jim Crawford was introduced.


Letters Home

June 16, 1895

Dear Mom and Dad,

Things have finally settled down. My arrival in Dodge City at 9:30 on the morning of May 29th followed closely on the scary excitement in and around Kansas City that began the week before. Nat's dad Judge Dillon and his uncle Mr. Clayborne have already told you about the part I played in ending the nefarious career of the crooked despicable mine owner Thomas Coleson. Thanks in small part to my and the people traveling from St. Louis with me, but mostly to those poor fellows, some as young as 15 or 16, slaving to dig out his coal, he was convicted, along with all his coconspirators. Still, you should hear directly from me why I had to be part of it. It's important you understand because otherwise you might be tempted to not allow Nat to return in the fall as one of the three students who board with us.

What Nat never mentioned when he provided his background in his application for room and board is the Dillons aren't a conventional extended family, although all but one uncle currently lives in Ford County. None of his uncles, including the one who left Dodge City to live near Wichita, his aunts or cousins is a blood relation or even related by marriage. Neither is my mentor Doctor Galen Adams, whom Nat and his two sisters and one brother call grandpa. Mr. Clayborne's Nat and his sister Abby's blood uncle, but he's not related to Adam and Maria, who call him uncle anyway. The Philadelphia industrialist's sister, not Mrs. Dillon, was the two oldest Dillon children's birth mother. Miss Kitty, which is what those considered close enough to not be formal yet expected to show respect call her, was Miss Kathleen Russell before her marriage to Mr. Dillon.

Nat and Abby's dying paternal grandmother Mrs. Clara Baker gained custody of them after a street accident killed their parents. While bringing them to live in Dodge City her small family became close to then US Marshal Matthew and his bride. Mr. and Mrs. Dillon adopted them, as stipulated in Mrs. Baker's will, within a few months of their June 1887, but 20 years in the making, marriage. Their brother Adam was born in March '88 and sister Maria three years later in June '91. However, to Mr. Clayborne both boys are his nephews and both girls his nieces. Festus, the recently retired deputy who now lives on the Dillon ranch, and the much younger second doctor in the area, their neighbor Newly O'Brien, are the two local uncles while their ranch foreman Albert's father Chester Goode who I mentioned moved away. It sorta makes Mr. Goode's wife Elsie and Doc Newly's wife Paula their aunts and the O'Brien boys John and Liam, Albert, his wife Sharon and their infant daughter Carolyn cousins.

Because Nat lives with us I was easily accepted as Doc's intern and semi-adopted. It's indirectly why I ended up exposed to the chance of being kidnapped, but with a difference from when Nat was on his way home. If he hadn't managed to escape I'd have been in danger anyway but without the protection Mr. Dillon arranged for me, starting with Mr. Clayborne. However, as always, he's dedicated to the law. Acting again as the US Marshal he was before retiring to become a judge, Mr. Dillon needed an apparently random young man he knew would be traveling at a certain time to be sure of trapping the miscreants. That's why he kept our family in the dark concerning the potential danger. Had he told us, I'd have come here anyway, whether you approved or not to help stop future kidnappings. If I didn't help put an end to this atrocity, Nat and many other innocent young men like me might have met with that horrible fate at any time.

Not knowing meant I didn't have to playact. I was scared to death from the time Nat and I were dragged off that train with three others through Nat, threatened with being tied to a post and whipped, in his attempt to escape these fiends a second time killing one of the gang who was about to shoot him. Nat, Mr. Dillon, a US Marshal out of the regional office in St. Louis and one Pinkerton agent were on the train from the time Mr. Clayborne left me on the platform in St. Louis. Those three men were with Nat and I on the train and then followed us from the moment we were captured, arriving just after the shooting. The trap they'd set used two henchmen sent to Dodge City to recapture Nat to lead them to those behind the whole sorry mess before any harm came to Nat, a willing patsy or me, the unknowing bait. Alas, the so-called guards didn't intend to give up their boss.

Once the rescue party got us out of the warehouse, my part was over except testifying in court about the little I witnessed. I wanted to help nab them like Nat, but Mr. Dillon insisted I stay safe in the home of the Kansas City Police Chief until I said my piece in court early in the trial. Only Marshal Pomeroy and his boss Sr. US Marshal Glen Paxton, who brought along more marshals to help clear out the mine, stayed for the duration. Mr. Dillon wished us a speedy safe trip before boarding his own train to Philadelphia at 7:30 PM on May 28th to personally present his case for involving me to you at our home in Princeton. Nat and I took the 8:30 PM train to Dodge City knowing it was now safe, bidding our own farewells to the Pinkerton, Mr. Wellington who took his client's son Warren Otterbein back home to Chicago on a train leaving a half-hour later.

I know from your letter that you were far from happy with Nat gunning down someone in front of me or with what Mr. Dillon had to say. Yes, Nat learned to do whatever's necessary in defense of himself and others, but neither is a killer. Killing was part of Mr. Dillon's long career as a lawman, but he hated being forced to do it. He merely accepted it as the worst, yet too often unavoidably necessary, means of making the frontier a safe place for good people to thrive. Nat hates being forced to kill even more. It's why, despite his complete respect and love for his father, he's chosen to pursue civil rather than criminal law. Once he passes the bar he'll become a partner of Mr. Taylor, the lawyer for whom he now clerks. If not for his father's dedication to civilizing the high plains Nat's choice of a career in civil law wouldn't have been possible.

According to Doc back when he was the only doctor for 100 miles, he spent much of his time tending to bullet wounds, often those suffered by Mr. Dillon. I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear that's no longer the case in a town that when Doc, Mr. Dillon and Miss Kitty first arrived wasn't much more than a trading post and railroad terminus without even a facade of civilization. Matter of fact, even then he tended to more births than to injury and death from deliberate violence. Many of those deaths were due to poverty and the disease it brought. Dodge City has changed, but injury and disease still beset its citizens. Only now it's like many growing prosperous towns farther east. There are bad elements but most are law-abiding citizens who are proud of the community that their Mr. Dillon made safe.

You'll be glad to know the train ride, like most are these days, was uneventful as was our six-mile trip in the Dillon's surrey to their ranch. Once there I was so tired from the 13-hour overnight trip that I fell asleep in the guest room assigned to me as soon as we arrived. Neither Nat nor I had slept since getting ready for court the previous day. I snoozed until the noon meal. He napped for the same length of time in his room across the hall from mine, next to the one reserved for Doc when he spends the night. It's in the wing of their large flattened c-shaped house that ends at Mr. Dillon's home office. The judge has another in the courthouse in town.

While the noon meal was a quiet affair, supper that Wednesday night was a welcome home celebration. In addition to Mrs. Goode, the cook/housekeeper all the household youngsters call Miss Sharon, her little one Carolyn, Festus, Miss Kitty, Maria, Adam, Nat, Abby and I, Albert joined us from out on the range, as they call it here, along with the O'Brien family, who live over the hill. Doc drove his buggy over after he saw his last patient in town in the early afternoon. While I'll mostly be seeing Doc's patients with him, Doc Newly wants me to accompany him out into the county and neighboring Gray County when Doc can spare me because Cimarron remains the only nearby county seat that lacks a fully qualified full-time physician. You'll notice I've bowed to local custom in how I address prominent citizens. Formal recognition of social distinctions is much more relaxed than back east and besides, I've now part of the family.

I thought I'd be traveling back to town with Doc in his buggy after that first night. Instead I was being taught to drive it and to ride a horse between patients. Doc remained at the ranch since the big party to celebrate Maria's fourth birthday and Mr. & Mrs. Dillon's eighth anniversary was Saturday night June 1st. Everyone knew where Doc would be if they really needed him. All they had to do was telephone from one of the instruments in their home or accessible to the public in town. Besides, it gave him a chance to check in on some of his long-time patients he no longer had a chance to see regularly because he now confined his practice to patients within or no more than a mile outside the town limits with the exception of his grandchildren and their parents despite the availability of Doc Newly.

Thanks to the party, where I got to meet just about everyone in the county, I didn't actually move into town until that first Sunday in June when I accompanied most all of the extended family to the service at The First Church of Dodge. I rode a large, obedient bay, one of the horses Mr. Dillon leaves in Hank Miller's livery in town to be available whenever the judge returns from presiding over cases in a town in the circuit and the family can't meet his train. Mr. Dillon chose to skip church since he'd only ridden home in time for dinner prior to last night's celebration. However, you'll be pleased to know I didn't. I waited until the service ended before moving into my room for the summer.

Because the town and surrounding county are growing, they've built a small hospital consisting of three ten-bed wards on the ground floor, one each for men, women and children. The second story is divided into 5 private and 10 semi-private rooms to accommodate another 25 patients. There's also a dispensary with a small private room behind and a small office that doubles as sleeping quarters for a doctor upstairs. The bed is quite comfortable. That's where I'm sleeping until I return to home and school at the end of the summer. The hospital is across Spruce Street from the courthouse, which takes up the square encompassed by Spruce on the north, Walnut on the south, Railroad Avenue on the east and First Avenue to the west.

Doc's space above Mr. Lathrop's general store is limited. It consists of his examining room that doubles as his surgery and two bedrooms. One is his private room while the other is for patients he wants to keep close for observation or who are too weak to be moved. This second room was especially important before the hospital was built last year. His office is on Front Street, which is the main business street in Dodge, up a flight of stairs across the alley from what was the Long Branch Saloon before Kansas became a temperance state and is now the Long Branch Restaurant, in which Miss Kitty maintains a controlling interest. It's near Bridge Street, also called Second Avenue, two blocks west and three blocks south of the hospital not counting the alleys.

I could physically describe more of Dodge City, but it would be like telling those who've never been to Princeton how the streets are laid out and what neighborhoods to avoid, as if they cared. Chestnut, which runs between Front and Walnut, is the last one I'll name and I'll end by saying the north to south roads are for the most part numbered avenues while the east to west streets are named for trees except Front and River Street, which runs along the Arkansas River. Those streets to the south between Front and River aren't important except for visiting the sick since anything on that side of the railroad tracks is literally on the wrong side where reputable people tend not to venture.

The exceptions are of course those performing charitable works on behalf of the local churches and aid societies, Doc and now me. One of the main things he's taught me in the short time I've been helping him with cases of measles and believe it or not even scurvy, is that everyone is entitled to the best possible medical care regardless of their ability to pay or their character. By reading the journals Doc receives in the mail and observing his diagnostic ability, dedication to doing everything known and experimenting if that doesn't work, I've learned more about what it means to be a doctor in a couple of weeks than from my year of medical classes at Penn. Because he and Doc Newly have to treat people from all walks of life and in vastly different circumstances, often in far less than ideal conditions, I can learn what Doctor Faraday with his practice confined to middle class and wealthy patients can't teach. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world and if you want me to be the best doctor possible, you won't wish for me to return home early.

I'll write regularly now that I'm settled into a routine. I only hope I don't bore you with descriptions of births, deaths and the diseases that plague mankind. I also hope by the time I receive your next letter you no longer blame Nat for the actions of his father. Furthermore, I hope you realize Judge Dillon is a good man who like you only wants the best for his children but has the added burden of removing those from society who are a threat to everyone he's sworn to protect. That protection extends to me and he did all in his power to provide it while finding the least harmful way to put very dangerous men behind bars. If he didn't take my wellbeing seriously he wouldn't have bothered to visit you at home or even to remotely send a personal message over the wires, via letter or through Mr. Clayborne.

Your son,

James

June 16, 1895

My dearest sister Emma,

I'm sure mom and dad will share my letter to them with you. If I'm to be honest, I'll be sending them general descriptions of the social life of Ford County, of which Dodge City is the County Seat, along with its medical life. I'm sure they'll be interested in the variety and quality of restaurants in all the towns in the county and the entertainers who play at the Comique, the local vaudeville house. However, there are things I want to tell you that they need only learn if attractions are mutual enough to become something lasting. What I'll share only with you is the more personal side of the social life here and I suspect at home while Nat's there.

Neither of you has said anything, but I couldn't help but notice how you two devised opportunities to be respectably alone with each other as often as possible. Nat's been raised to act as a gentleman, especially around ladies, or mom and dad wouldn't have accepted him into our household. I feel he comes by it naturally because both his parents show respect to all people no matter their station in life. The only exceptions are those who deliberately do harm to others for the simple reason they can. If you feel about him the way I sense you do, I've good news. He doesn't seem to have a particular interest in any local girl, but they sure are interested in the tall, good looking oldest child of one of the most respected, possibly wealthiest, thanks to inheritances and Miss Kitty's business acumen, families in Ford County, if not the entire state of Kansas.

It appears my luck is running as good as yours. I've been spending much of my time in the company of the older of Nat's two sisters Abby, who will turn 15 in August. She's been learning all she can from her mother, who Doc taught, Doc and Doc Newly to become a fully qualified nurse/midwife. Since she was little, it's what she's wanted to do beyond being a wife and mother. Miss Kitty with her family, restaurant and ranch responsibilities now confines her nursing to family members when they fall ill so Abby's taken over assisting her grandpa and uncle.

I'll confess sis, even if we weren't thrown together because of our shared interest in improving our medical knowledge and skills, I'd want to spend as much time as possible with her. She's a vision of loveliness with a remarkable shade of red hair her adoptive mother shares, and blue eyes that are heavenly. Her wanting to be a nurse and her looks would be enough to draw me closer, but, when added to her effervescent personality and kindness, Abby's irresistible. We spent all of last night's Founder's Day Dance with each other and had such a good time that she's agreed to accompany me to all the Fourth of July festivities, with her father's permission of course.

As you can gather I wish this summer would go on forever, but I know I have to finish school so, if our attraction grows into something more, I can take over her grandpa's practice and make Dodge City my home. Don't fear, Emma, it doesn't mean I wish to abandon Princeton. If that were so I'd find a way to complete my schooling closer to western Kansas than the eastern seaboard. You'll be happy to know that my sense is as much as Nat enjoys being with his family and learning the practicalities of the law with his father and Mr. Taylor, he longs for the summer to end so he can return to your side. Let us hope that mom and dad don't decide Mr. Dillon showed callus disregard for my wellbeing in order to further his own ends or that like father like son Nat is a killer, unworthy to live under our roof.

I'll understand if you don't want to share your feelings for Nat with your big brother, but I intend to sound him out and report back to you regularly. He owes it to me like he would a twin if we were exactly the same age instead of me being six months older. Likewise, I hope you don't object to my sharing my feelings about Abby. If things go right you'll meet her and become as close as sisters, less than a year apart in age since you turned 15 this past February.

Your loving brother,

Jim


End file.
